


you're all that i need underneath the tree

by amessofgaywords



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, chrissy the christmas cactus makes an appearance, christmas tree extravaganza!, jamie pulling pranks, just two fluffy winter lesbians, maybe i'm jamie taylor after all, thanks to amelia eve for providing me with plant cameo fodder, wow i really want to spend the holidays in vermont
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: Jamie loves snowy Vermont and Dani’s hot chocolate – the one hot drink she can make without poisoning someone – and the festive lights hung on every storefront, including their own unopened one. Jamieseemsto like everything about Christmas. Key word being seems.or jamie, dani, and the fight over a christmas tree. or lack thereof.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 1
Kudos: 69





	you're all that i need underneath the tree

**Author's Note:**

> damie christmas fluff! because we could all use some of that, i think.
> 
> title from underneath the tree by kelly clarkson.

It turns out that they make it to Christmas. Christmas in Vermont, in fact. Christmas in Vermont in a little apartment above an empty retail space they are slowly but surely turning into their very own flower shop. One day Jamie will tell Dani she loves her in this shop with a moonflower almost ready to bloom. One day they will wear claddagh rings in this flower shop, sneaking secret smiles. But today is not that day.

They’ll open in the spring, Jamie says. In the spring, when people actually _need_ flowers and it’s not just pointless poinsettia after pointless poinsettia. Dani says fine, they’ll open in the spring, and secures another wholesale supplier. Every night Jamie is a little ball of nervous energy, worrying over arrangements, glass door decals and awnings and inventory. And then it’s snow and Christmas is coming.

Jamie wasn’t kidding when she said she had been looking forward to a snowy Vermont Christmas since she was a kid. The second the first flakes fall, in early December, she’s out there in a thick coat and mittens catching them on her tongue. Dani watches from the door, shaking her head and giggling as Jamie throws fistfuls of white stuff in the air. Her face falls noticeably when trucks turn it all to grey slush the next morning.

Jamie loves snowy Vermont and Dani’s hot chocolate – the one hot drink she can make without poisoning someone – and the festive lights hung on every storefront, including their own unopened one. Jamie _seems_ to like everything about Christmas. Key word being seems.

On December third, Dani offhandedly mentions “that corner would be perfect for a tree, you know.” Jamie makes a face at the designated corner, right next to the window and the rickety wooden shelf thrifted from… somewhere, that holds their record player and a handful of books for the time being.

“What, there? I was gonna put the philodendron there.” Jamie has been growing a philodendron bigger than she is since they moved in. It’s about ready to leave its spot on the downstairs counter in the shop. Jamie pouts. It’s _almost_ enough to convince Dani. Almost.

“Well, where are we putting the tree, then?” she counters in something suspiciously close to her _teacher_ voice. Jamie thinks on it, twisting her lips back and forth in that face she makes when she’s mulling over a problem.

“Leave it to me,” she says finally, and Dani does, because this is a plant thing, ultimately, and Jamie does the plant things.

They go in their separate directions: Jamie to continue work on the DIY greenhouse they’re making off the back of the building in their postage stamp backyard, Dani to do grocery shopping, Christmas shopping, a trip to the post office. When she comes home that evening, arms laden with bags and more than a few rolls of holiday lights to string up and around their apartment – still annoyingly undecorated – Jamie is sitting proudly on the kitchen counter, holding a little pot in her hands.

It is a bonsai tree. It is a bonsai tree with a single red ornament on it. The weight of the ornament drags the tree down just the slightest bit. There’s some green and red painted rocks thrown in with the normal river pebbles Jamie uses to cover the soil for her bonsais; there’s clearly been some effort put in. The whole affair is about the size of Jamie’s head, and that… that is not a Christmas tree.

“Hey, baby,” Dani starts, and Jamie thrusts the pot forward with the most adorable smile on her face. Like she’s solved a complicated math problem or something. “Whatchya got there?”

Jamie shakes the little pot. “Our Christmas tree.” She hops off the counter and carries the little bonsai to the coffee table, setting it right in the center on top of a copy of _Gardeners Monthly._ She thrusts her hands out, like this has solved the problem. The philodendron, Dani has noticed, has taken up residence in the corner of the room.

“Jamie. I know we’re from different countries. And maybe this is one of my _Americanisms_ …” Jamie snorts at her own turn of phrase, “but you do know what a Christmas tree is, right?”

Jamie’s smile grows the tiniest bit self-conscious. “I just figured, you know, this is easier to maintain. And move about. And less messy pine needles, this way.”

“Jamie, you’re a groundskeeper. Since when do you care about pine needles.”

Jamie steps forward and takes hold of Dani’s waist, making her drop the bags she’s holding to the ground, swaying them in a circle: the Jamie Defense Maneuver, intended to throw Dani off-guard and make her focus on Jamie’s hands more than the words coming out of her mouth. It works a frustrating amount of the time. 

A smirk plays on Jamie’s lips as she leans closer. “Yes, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to spend your Christmas Hooverin’ up my messes, now would you?” she ghosts across Dani’s lips. Dani rolls her eyes.

“Jamie, we need a real Christmas tree.”

“Okay, okay. Put me on it. I’ll handle it.”

\---

Jamie – not entirely surprisingly – does not handle it.

The next afternoon, she comes upstairs with a Christmas cactus she has named Chrissy. “It’s festive,” she argues, and Dani argues that anything that she can carry comfortably in her arms does not constitute _Christmas tree._ This also includes the stuffed dog Jamie brings home in a Christmas tree costume, which, though adorable, is not living and therefore not tree-worthy.

It takes a week for her to upgrade from little potted plants nicked from their inventory to something even resembling an actual tree – and the philodendron is still in the corner. Dani is wrapping gifts in the bedroom when she hears a muffled “fuck” and then the telltale sound of Jamie cutting her hand on something sharp, somewhere between a cat-like mewl and a shriek. Dani pokes her head out of the bedroom.

Jamie is standing at the kitchen counter pressing a paper towel to her bleeding thumb, which has been cut by… the wooden base of the crumbly looking tree she has standing there. Just about the height of her torso, laden with the single red ornament from the very first attempt at tree-replacing, it bears a striking resemblance to…

“Is that a Charlie Brown Christmas tree?” Dani asks, a hand on her hip. A flush fills Jamie’s cheeks the same shade as the round ornament.

“Tryin’ to make an exact replica,” she mutters, rubbing the back of her neck. “But the bloody base gave me a splinter, the sodded-” She stops when she sees the look Dani is giving her. “Reckon this isn’t good enough for you, either?”

“Nice try,” Dani says, and ducks back into the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind her. Muffled through the wood, she hears Jamie’s rebuttal.

“You know, trees aren’t exactly what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!” 

The next try is hanging some lights and ornaments off of the offending philodendron itself. The rest of their apartment has been decorated by now: garland strung up over every available surface, lights around the doorways, the obligatory mistletoe strung under the light by their bedroom making Dani pin Jamie to the wall every so often, et cetera, et cetera. The only thing left, on December sixteenth, is their prominent lack of tree.

Dani stands, with her arms crossed, staring at the leafy green plant. “It’s not a tree.”

“Kinda looks like one, though.” Jamie fingers the delicate leaves. “Could be tall enough.”

Dani sighs and turns on her girlfriend, slow-to-form irritation starting to seep into her voice. “Honestly, Jamie, what do you have against a simple Christmas tree?”

“It takes up Phil’s corner, is all.” Jamie’s cheeky smile is oblivious of the way Dani’s actually starting to get a little pissed. “What, would you have Maid Marion moved from her perch on your bookshelf so I could put up a bauble?” Maid Marion is Dani’s favorite plant, a delicate maidenhair fern, and that is a _low blow._ Plus:

“Christmas trees are not _baubles,_ Jamie, they’re important parts of the season. They’re… they mean something, and you put presents under them-”

“Rather my present be wrapped up under something else, if you know what I mean.” Dani groans into her palms.

“Jamie, this is important to me. Can we please, just, for once…” She can’t finish, because the _for once_ doesn’t mean anything, not when Jamie has been spending the better part of the last year taking care of her, watching out for her, loving her for loving’s sake. Not when Jamie is… Jamie, always the warm hands and lips and smile to come home to.

Jamie swallows, sticks her hands in her pockets. “Yeah, Poppins. We can. I’ll figure something out.” Dani sighs. She believes her. Maybe shouldn’t, but she does.

Over the next few days, Jamie takes down the decorations from Phil, though he’s still sat in the corner. And she leaves little trees _everywhere._ Doodles on sticky notes left for Dani to find, pasta arranged in a vaguely tree-like shape on the counter when Dani starts dinner, a little enamel tree pin Jamie finds to stick to the pocket of Dani’s coat. Finally, a piece of scrap paper on the fridge on a Sunday morning: _tree lot down the way on main. Noon when I get done in the shop?_ A smiley face, a heart. Dani takes the piece of paper and folds it away in their Drawer of Polaroids and Things They Should Probably Keep for Insurance Purposes, the place where the papers they can’t throw away go. She makes two travel mugs of hot chocolate and heads downstairs.

They walk to the Christmas tree lot, bumping elbows in a comfortable silence. Even when they fight, even then… Dani and Jamie fit together, in a way Dani’s never fit with another person before. Jamie’s edges make sense in all her missing parts, like finding a puzzle piece on the rug you hadn’t realized you dropped. Dani reaches into Jamie’s coat pocket and laces their fingers together and doesn’t care how it looks: that, folks, that right there is love.

Jamie inspects the meager collection of firs and pines, not much left this late in the season. There’s less than a week to Christmas, and the lot is mostly empty, of trees and people. As Jamie is rubbing the needles of a tall, regal pine between her gloved fingers, Dani loops an arm around hers.

“What _do_ you have against Christmas trees, anyway?” Jamie stills. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, but… I was wondering. It can’t just be Phil.”

“Phil’s a good man,” Jamie says quietly, quietly in the Jamie way that means there’s more coming. She swallows and faces Dani. “It’s not about my childhood, or anything. I mean, Christmas wasn’t special, but I liked it all the same. This isn’t a deep-seated trauma to solve.”

“I figured.” She did. Dani knows Jamie’s tics, when things like the scar on her shoulder start bothering her. This, this Christmas tree game they’ve been playing, has not been one of them. Jamie breathes deep, looks back to the pine.

“It’s just… It’s that all these trees are all dead. You can laugh, but yeah, they are. They’re plants, and they were alive, and then we chopped ‘em down and covered ‘em in tinsel and fancy lights and now, now they’re just… pretty things to look at it until we throw ‘em away and flip the calendar.”

“They’re not dead yet,” Dani says, leaning into Jamie with a little more force.

“Yeah, but, they will be soon. They’re not something you watch grow and take care of and then leave at the right time. We come and we take them in before they’re ready and then we don’t give ‘em the proper goodbye they deserve.” Jamie is firm, tight-jawed in her declarations. This means something to her, Dani notes. More than she’d realized before.

“What would make you feel better?” Dani asks, looking around them. All of these trees are the same, really. She tries to think of ways to make them better for Jamie, but Jamie is pointing at the one in front of them, nodding resolutely.

“I guess first... name this bad boy. Humanize the process a little.” Dani cocks her head, searching nine years of mental classroom registers for a suitable name.

“Harold?”

“Stuffy. Hell no.”

“Lorraine.”

“Don’t live in the sixties anymore, Poppins.”

“Hannah.”

Jamie sucks in a breath. “Maybe next year.” When it’s not so fresh. Dani pulls it back.

“Priscilla, then?”

“Jesus, where are you getting these?” Jamie shoots Dani a derisive look that still manages to be appreciative at the same time. She tugs off her glove, stroking the thin branches of the pine carefully. “Hmm. I’m thinking Theresa. Theresa the tree.”

“Theresa it is, then.” Dani flags down the salesman.

Decorating the tree is a messy process. So is, evidently, Hoovering up all of the pine needles. Jamie is smug as Dani sucks them up, but still kisses her when she asks.

Theresa shines bright all through Christmas, and they leave her up until February, until they stop watering and her branches start to go dry, just because they can. It is their home, after all. Their great, good home, above the Vermont snow, a warmth all their own weathering them through winter.

On February eighth they carry Theresa to the curb for the garbage collection trucks. Jamie pats her firmly on the trunk. “Good old tree. Miss you already, ya dame.”

“Better than the philodendron?”

“Phil is going back to his spot as soon as we get rid of those extra pine needles.”

“Got it. Noted.” Dani has learned that when it comes to the plant things, messing with Jamie is never a good idea.

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to chrissy the christmas cactus of amelia eve's instagram fame, maid marion my maidenhair fern who i do adore, and phil the xanadu philodendron i wish i had for appearing in this fic. y'all are the real mvps.
> 
> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


End file.
